I Meant to Apologize
by myhomeistheshire
Summary: Skye and Ward get in a fight when she sees him coming out of May's room, but Skye is kidnapped and Ward has to come to terms with how he feels about her.


When Ward woke up in May's bed, he had a brief moment of panic where he couldn't remember where he was. Then it came back to him, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he sat up. The clock on the nightstand read 7:14 - he'd slept in. May was already gone, probably off doing her training regimen that she did every morning. He threw on his clothes that lay scattered on the floor, double-checking that he hadn't left anything behind before heading out.

He opened the door, expecting an empty hallway but ended up face-to-face with Skye, who was just raising a fist to knock.

"Skye?" His mind went blank of anything that could resemble an excuse, or an explanation. "What are you -"

"I was looking for May." Skye blurted, then corrected herself. "Coulson was looking for May. He sent me to see if she was still asleep."

"I was just -" He couldn't think of anything to end the sentence with.

"Just what?" Skye picked up for him. "You don't need an excuse. You're both consenting adults, what goes on between the two of you is your business."

"I wasn't looking for an excuse." Ward said, annoyed for some reason at how nonchalant she was about it.

"Good." Skye shot back starkly. There was a brief silence, where Ward couldn't think of anything to say.

"You could have mentioned it, though." Skye continued - and was that irritation in her voice? Or something else? "And May? Really?"

"I didn't know that my personal life was something that needed your express approval." Ward said, his voice growing harder.

"We're _friends_, Ward. Friends don't keep secrets like this!"

"And you know that from all the lasting friendships you've had in your life?" Ward shot back, his voice rising.

"At least when I was sleeping around it was with someone I actually cared about, not some sort of friends-with-benefits bullshit!"

"Oh, right, _Miles._ How is he these days? Heard much from him lately?"

Skye was furious now, he could tell. "_I _ended that, _I_ told him not to contact me, okay? He left _because I told him to!_"

"Exactly! How the hell do you justify giving me relationship advice when _you told_ your last boyfriend to leave? For that matter, how many relationships have you had that worked out for you? How many relationships have you ran away from because _you_ were too scared to see them out? You're being petty and immature and _stupid,_ just because you're jealous that someone could actually be happy about something that doesn't involve you!"

As soon as the words were out of his mouth he wished he could take them back. Skye's mouth opened, then closed again. She dropped her gaze, and Ward thought he saw her eyes tear up before she looked away.

"Skye, I didn't mean -"

"Don't bother." She pushed past him and bolted down the hallway and around the corner. Ward let out a frustrated breath of air and resisted the urge to punch a wall, and instead changed directions and headed for the training room. He could use a workout right about now.

For the next couple of days, Skye steadfastly ignored him - training sessions were silent except for Ward explaining the maneuvers, and the one time he'd tried to apologize she'd walked out. Fine. If she wouldn't accept his apology, that was her problem. Or it was, until a few days later Coulson called them both into his office.

"Yes, sir?" Ward said, standing beside Skye, who still refused to so much as look at him.

"We have a mission." Coulson said, throwing a file on the desk. "We need information from a secured storage facility. A team of agents will clear the route for Skye to get into the computers, but I need you to go with her in case this goes south. Understood?"

"Yes, sir." Ward said at the same time as Skye asked "What information?" They looked over at each other for a brief moment before Skye remembered that she wasn't speaking to Ward and turned to look back at Coulson.

"That's classified." Coulson said, and held up a hand when Skye started to protest. "I know how you feel about this, however the information is dangerous enough that only a few select people are allowed to read it. All the information you'll need is in the file. It's crucial that we get this information ASAP, so I'll need you to head out right away." He gestured to the folder on the table, then hesitated before making his next remark. "Is working together going to be a problem for you two?"

"Of course not." Ward answered. Skye kept her mouth shut, but Coulson must've taken her silence as agreement because he went back to the file he was studying. Skye grabbed the folder off the desk and walked out before Ward could say anything else. He sighed and followed her out.

"Skye -"

"Give it up, will you?" She retorted, head still buried in the file.

"I wasn't going to apologize." Ward said coldly, "I need to check that you're bringing along the right supplies."

"What, like a chainsaw?" Skye asked sarcastically. "It's a hack job. All I need is my laptop."

"No, you don't." Ward said, forcing his annoyance down. "Regardless of whether you'll actually be fighting, you still need to be able to defend yourself."

Skye looked up, suddenly interested. "Do I get a gun?"

"No." Ward said automatically. "The odds of you getting hurt are actually higher if you bring a gun when you haven't trained with one."

"Dumb training." Skye muttered. "Maybe I haven't been through S.H.I.E.L.D. testing, but I can still shoot a gun."

"You can bring a knife." Ward conceded. "Just the style that we've been training with, though. And a lock pick would be a good idea as well."

"Come on, eighteen years in the system and you think I can't pick a lock with a hairpin?" Skye quipped caustically. "Give me some credit, _Agent._"

Ward bit back his frustration. "Just be ready in an hour."

A couple hours later - of course Skye wasn't ready in an hour - they were outside the compound. "You ready?" Coulson asked through the earpiece.

"As ready as I'll ever be." Skye muttered, following Ward as he snuck in through the door. As promised, the troops that would normally be guarding all exits had been distracted, so all that was left was for them to get to the main computer in the center of the building. It only took them a minute of darting through hallways and creeping around corners until they reached it.

"Alright, let's get started." Skye muttered, plugging her laptop into the computer and typing furiously. Ward kept his gun out, watching the door as she worked. The longer it took, the more worried he became. Finally, with an "Aha!" Skye unplugged her laptop. "All on my hard drive. Let's go."

Ward took his eyes off the door for just a moment to turn and look at her. But a moment was all it took.

Pain exploded in his leg as shouts burst out from the corridor. "Skye, get out!" Ward shouted, but realized as soon as the words were out of his mouth that there was no other exit. Onto offense, then. The bullet had just grazed his leg, so he could still stand on it as he fired into the crowd of soldiers, taking out the ones closest to him with a few well-placed hits. He almost thought he'd make it, until he heard the click of a trigger behind him. Slowly, he put his hands up. Before he could turn and take out whoever was pointing the gun at him the soldiers had assembled in a circle, all with their rifles aimed straight at his chest. _Skye_, Ward thought urgently, looking around the room for her. There - one of the soldiers had her in a tight grip, with a hand covering her mouth. Obviously, they didn't think she was a threat.

"You're making a mistake." Ward said slowly, assessing the situation with a sinking heart. There wasn't any obvious ways out of this. He heard the safeties clicking off, braced himself for the shot -

"Wait!" Skye elbowed the soldier holding her, then whirled around and kneed him in the groin, then gave him a punch to the side of his face that would leave him with a black eye, at least. If it hadn't been such a dire situation, Ward would've been proud. She grabbed his gun and in a moment had the safety clicked off and pressed to her skull.

"Skye, what are you doing?" Ward said in a low voice, panic shooting through him. "Put the gun down." But she ignored him.

"All those files, they're on my laptop. I deleted them from the mainframe and encrypted them. You need me to decode it, if you want those files intact." She was out of breath, but the soldiers seemed to be paying attention to her. _What the hell is she doing?_ Ward thought, waiting for Skye to continue. "So let him go." She said firmly. "Let him go, or I pull the trigger and your employers never see those files again.

Ward's blood ran cold. _She's bluffing,_ he thought to himself, but something about her eyes, how she wouldn't look at him, told him differently.

But then, one by one, the soldiers started lowering their weapons.

"Are you _insane?_" He burst out. "Skye, you can't do this -"

"Let him go, leave your weapons here, and I'll go with you."

And there was nothing Ward could do about it, because the soldiers were lowering their weapons and then he was being shoved out the door and the giant metal door was being closed in front of him. And there must've been another way out because he could hear the thudding of footsteps trailing away from him.

"Agent Ward, we need an update." Coulson's voice in his ear. "What's going on?"

It was a moment before Ward could speak through the rage building up in his throat. "They took Skye." He said, clearing his throat. "She negotiated my release, but now they have her and the files." It suddenly ocurred to him that Skye wasn't on the comms. They must've found her earpiece, _dammit._

"Return to the bus." Coulson said crisply. "We might have a way to track her."

"On my way." Ward said, but he couldn't help a backward glance at the doors before he left.

"We may be able to track her through the bracelet."

Everyone was crowded around the table in the control room. Fitz and Simmons were huddled together, whispering scientific theories back and forth. Coulson looked like it was all he could do to keep his calm, and even May looked worried.

"They've scrambled the signal, but we have teams at the Hub working to decode it. They'll get back to us as soon as they've made any progress on Skye's location."

"There must be _something_ else we can do." Ward insisted. He couldn't get Skye's face out of his head, standing up there, risking her life for him - and after the way he'd treated her. "We have no idea what they're doing to her - they could be torturing her for information, or she could be dead already." Ward's chest constricted at the thought, and he had to take a deep breath to calm himself down. His first thought was that the effects from the asgardian staff were back, but this time the rage wasn't a flashback, it was a reality.

Simmons let out a little gasp, and then Fitz was back to comforting her.

"I understand your concern, but there's nothing we can do until we find her." Coulson said automatically. Ward clenched his fists together. There was nothing he wanted to do more than hit someone - he'd gladly have gone on a mission, _any_ mission just to give him something to do instead of this endless waiting.

"Wait - there!" Simmons was pointing to the screen. "The bracelet's online, they got it!" Everyone turned to look and sure enough, there was a little yellow blip on the map. Everyone started moving all at once.

"Alright, we've got a lock on the location. Looks like someplace underground, so we can take the bus right above it. Agent May, you're going with Agent Ward. FitzSimmons, get the lab ready with medical supplies. We don't know what state she'll be in." He turned to May. "Skye is first priority, but we need those files too." She nodded. "Alright, everyone get ready. We should be on the ground within the hour."

It only took a few minutes for Ward to gather the equipment he needed - he'd had most of it ready as soon as he got back from the last mission. So now all he could do was sit, and wait, and worry. Because it wasn't just that Skye wasn't trained, it was that out of all of them, she was the most light-hearted, always cracking jokes and making light of the situation. Always trying to comfort everyone else around her. She had the most gentle nature out of everyone he'd ever met, and he couldn't imagine what going through something like this could do to her.

There. That was the plane touching down. Ward headed to the cargo hold, where May was already waiting.

"The have an underground base." May said coolly. "There's a back access point that we're going through since it won't be as guarded." Ward followed her out onto the ground.

If he hadn't known about the underground bunker, Ward would've missed it. They were in the middle of a field, and the opening looked like a potato cellar. Ward opened it slowly, watching for any alarms they could have, but it looked like they were clear. May went first, then he followed her down into the tunnel.

Once they descended the stairs it turned from a rustic cellar into a steel-lined hallway with flourescent lights and fingerprint scanners. _Fingerprint scanners._ Dammit. Hopefully there weren't any on the doors they had to get through.

"Okay, now take a right." Fitz was directing them through the comms after he'd managed to get a hold of a floor plan.

"Are you even sure this is where they're holding her?" Ward snapped.

"Well, calculating by the density of the walls and the security surrounding it, it's where they'd be statistically most likely to place a prisoner." Simmons cut in.

"You'd better be right." Ward muttered under his breath, turning right at the corner.

"Simmons, I thought we agreed I would be doing - wait! Stop, it's right there!"

"Where?"

"Second door on the left - I'm _sorry, _Fitz, fine, you do it."

The door was locked, but there were no extra security measures so Ward was able to kick it open. But when he stepped into the room, he saw another door - one with a fingerprint acces panel and what looked like a retinal scan. And beside that was a large one-way mirror, staring into a room that was empty except for a single person, strapped down to a chair in the center of the room.

Skye.

She was facing him, but her eyes were closed. She wasn't asleep, though - her lips were moving, and her hands were shaking uncontrollably. As if she was trying to block out a nightmare. Her arms were riddled with puncture wounds, and there was a cut on her forehead that looked like it was purpling into a bruise. Fury shot through Ward, blurring his vision for a moment.

"We need to get her out of there." He said to May.

"Through all that security?" May asked with a raised eyebrow. "You're gonna need an inside man."

Just then, footsteps echoed down the hall. Without a word, May and Ward instantly stepped back behind the door.

"Why isn't it locked?" A sharp voice, female, came from just outside.

"I - uh - there's no record of a security breach, it could've just been left that way -" This voice was male, and younger.

"Find out who left it this way, and tell them to report to me." The woman speaking came through the door way, and without hesitation May was in front of her, knocking her out with a quick punch to the head. Ward stepped around her and took out the other speaker, who looked just fresh out of college and had no fight training whatsoever. In another situation, Ward might've felt sorry for him, but not while Skye was involved. He turned around to see May already lifting up that woman's unconscious form to access the finger and retina scans. _Click_. The doors opened, and with a quick "watch the door" to May, he was in the room beside Skye.

"Skye." He worked to unfasten the straps holding her down as quickly as he could. "Skye, open your eyes, it's me."

But she kept her eyes closed, shaking her head and murmuring unintelligible words under her breath. A tear slid down her cheek, and Ward gave up on the straps for a moment, just cradling her face in his hands. "It's me. Skye, you're going to be alright, we're gonna get you out, okay?"

"You're not real." Skye whispered, eyes firmly closed. "None of this is real -" her voice cracked. Terror shot though him. What had they done to her?

"I'm real, I promise. Remember, a couple weeks ago when we were playing battleship? You totally kicked my ass, too." A hint of a smile pulled up the edges of her lips, but she still didn't open her eyes. "And that one time that we were in New York and we were scoping out an apartment for bugs and you gave me a black eye because you thought I was an intruder?" Finally, her eyes flickered open.

"Grant?" She whispered, her voice hoarse.

"Yeah." He said with a relieved smile. "We're going to get you out of here, okay?" He unbuckled the straps, then reached an arm around her shoulders to help her sit up. He could tell it hurt her, but she kept her lips pressed firmly into a line as she swung her feet over the side and stood up. She wavered, took a step, and would've fallen if Ward hadn't been there to catch her. Without another word he picked her up and carried her out the door.

"We're clear." May said, stepping out ahead of them to double-check the hallway.

"I need an update." Coulson said over the comms.

"We've got Skye, but she's in bad shape." Ward said. "We need to get her back to the bus."

"We need the files first."

"Sir, she needs to be looked at -"

"We've got it." May interrupted him. Ward shot her a furious look. "We need those files." May said to him in a low voice.

"Fine." Ward responded shortly. "Fitzsimmons, where are we headed?"

"Down the hallway to your left, sixth door on the right." Fitz responded.

"You'll need to get through another fingerprint scan, though." Simmons piped in.

May nodded, turning back and lifting the unconscious woman onto her shoulders. "Let's go." She said.

"We're like sitting ducks." Ward muttered as they walked down the hallway, as quickly and noiselessly as they could. They reached the door, passed the fingerprint scan. And there it was - Skye's laptop, sitting on one of many shelves filling the room. May picked it up, tucked it under her arm.

"Alright, we've got the files." Ward said. "We'll be out in under a minute, have the bus ready to leave in case we're followed."

They headed towards the exit, but footsteps echoed on the tile floor now, and shouts erupted behind them.

"Get Skye out!" May ordered him, handing the laptop to the all-but-unconscious girl in his arms and bringing out her gun. There, they were at the ladder.

"Skye, you'll have to climb this, I'm sorry." Ward set her down gently, hands on her waist to support her. Amazingly enough, she did it - she was barely through the opening when the first few soldiers came around the corner, guns up. May was shooting left and right, but she couldn't hold them off for long. Ward climbed the ladder, bringing out his gun and firing at the soldiers as May followed him up. There, the door closed behind them, but the ladder only bought them a minute.

He picked up Skye again, who was struggling to stay on her feet and handed May the laptop. They dashed onto the bus, guns out. Fitz was waiting for them in the cargo hold, an anxious look on his face. "Simmons, close the doors!" Ward shouted into the comms.

"Is Skye alright?" Fitz asked nervously.

"I don't know." Ward said reluctantly. "We need to get her to the lab, though. Now." The doors started to close, and May was already heading to the cockpit. The doors to the lab slid open, and Ward brought Skye in, with Fitz following closely behind. Simmons was already there, with a bed pulled up and a cup of hot tea on the counter.

"Tea?" Ward raised an eyebrow. Simmons flushed.

"It was the first thing that came to mind!"

Ward set Skye down on the bed carefully. "Are you okay?" He asked her softly.

"Fine." Skye said with a small, forced smile. Simmons was already racing around the lab, grabbing different testers and medicine from the drawers.

"Can you explain what they did?" Simmons asked, finally sitting down on a chair beside Skye. "It would really help to narrow down the possibilities."

Skye took a deep breath, then let it out again shakily. "They - injected me with needles. I don't know what was in it, but it - um, it -" She broke off, her hands shaking more, and her breath started coming in small gasps.

"Hey, it's alright. No one's going to hurt you now." Ward assured her. Slowly, her breathing relaxed into a normal rythm. He turned to Simmons. "Do you know what they did to her? Is she going to be alright?"

"Not yet, and probably." Simmons said, flitting around Skye nervously. "There are several different things they could've used, but only a few of them are harmful in the long run."

"A few? Meaning, there could be something inside her right now that might, what? Kill her?"

"It's extremely unlikely." Simmons said carefully. "But I'll need to run a few tests first, and to do that I'll need a blood sample."

Ward glanced over at Skye, who had her eyes open but was so still - he doubted she could even hear them. "Alright." He said to Simmons with a quick nod. "But she's not going to take this well." He placed a hand on Skye's shoulder to get her attention. She jumped, her eyes flicking over to him. "Simmons is just going to have to give you a quick needle, okay?"

"No," Skye pushed herself up frantically. "No more needles, you can't, you can't _please -_"

"Shh, this one won't hurt. You're safe, Skye, no one's going to hurt you, okay? You're safe, you're safe here with me." He nodded to Simmons, and she quickly stuck the needle into Skye's arm and withdrew it after just an instant. Skye had her lips pursed together, and she was curled up into a ball.

"See? Not so bad, right?" Ward said, and received just a ghost of a smile in return for his efforts.

"No." Skye said softly. "It wasn't so bad."

It took her hours to fall asleep, but when she did Ward pulled up a chair next to the bed and sat there, absentmindedly stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. She looked peaceful, for a while, and Ward was struck with the events of the day. He couldn't even think of the last time he'd been this scared for someone - this furious when they were hurt. And as he watched Skye sleeping there, the realization hit him like a bolt of lightning.

He was in love with her.

He should've realized before now, but he was so used to pushing people away that he didn't see it. And now that he realized, there was no going back.

He fell asleep beside her, in the old armchair that had been sitting around collecting dust in the back corner. He woke up when she started screaming, soothing her, whispering calming words in her ears. Holding her as she sobbed, cradling her until she fell asleep again.

The next few weeks were hard. The test results came back clean - whatever they'd given Skye had been extremely painful - not just physically, from the pieces Ward was able to glean from her there were a few choice hallucinations, too - but it wasn't life-threatening. She returned, slowly, to her old self, but her jokes were fewer, her smiles only appearing on occasion. She distanced herself, from Ward, from the team, and he got the sense that she hadn't forgiven him for the fight before. Finally, one night after training he couldn't stand it anymore.

"Skye, I want to apologize."

"Apologize for what?" She asked, still breathing a little harder from the workout.

"For what I said, that night in the hallway." Skye tensed up, just a little, but Ward persisted. "What I said was cruel, and completely untrue. I was angry and I took it out on you. So I wanted to say I'm sorry."

Skye was silent for a moment, and Ward started to think she was still pissed, before she spoke. "It wasn't _completely_ untrue." She conceded quietly. "I was jealous, and stupid."

_Jealous? She doesn't mean -_ "Either way, I'm sorry." Ward hesitated in what he said next. "And, for the record, May and I are done."

"Why do you think I'd care?" Skye was instantly on the defensive.

"I don't. I mean, I just -" he broke off, swearing internally. He almost turned to leave, but stopped himself. _Now or never._ "When you got back from the mission, and you were in the lab - I realized something." He stopped, tried to think of the words that he needed.

"Yeah?" Skye stood up straighter and took a sudden interest in his words.

"I realized that, after all the time we've spent together - obviously, since we've both been on the bus -" Skye had an almost amused look on now. Ward stopped again, let out a deep breath.

"I love you."

Skye's amused look faltered, her eyes widening.

"I realized, back in the lab, that I was stupid, fooling myself. I tried to keep my distance, but it didn't work."

Skye crossed her arms, and the amused look was back now - just a twitch at the corners of her mouth. "And what about May?"

"I was trying to keep my distance, but I couldn't stop thinking about you. She was there, and I thought that it was the best way to keep you out of my head." He let out a short laugh. "It didn't work." He looked back up at Skye, bracing himself for her reaction.

"You stupid idiot," Skye said with a smile that broke across her face, and then she was across the room and in his arms and bringing his head down to meet hers. Ward almost couldn't believe it right away, but then he lost himself in the feeling of kissing her and the warmth of her body close to his.

And for the moment, nothing else mattered.


End file.
